Page 321 - BERESHIT

bereshit The first letters of the words have the same numerical value

as the word . There was holiness in Yitzchak’s offspring, namely

Yaakov and his family.

When the Yetzer Hara sees a person desiring to live a Torah life, he
immediately tries to grab hold of this person and weaken his grip. Without
the vigil of morality and the vanguard of truth, we are easy prey. Blinded
by his blinders of self-centeredness and hedonism, Lavan stooped to
contemplating murdering his own grandchildren. One who stands at the
doorway of righteousness but refuses to enter, chooses by default to live
in the netherworld of sin.

Hashem blessed Avraham , with everything. Rashi writes that the
word has the same numerical value as the word . There are those
who bring a Midrash that the word refers to the mitzvah of sukkah.
11 What is the connection between them? The walls of the sukkah surround
our whole physical being, giving us total enclosure on all sides. This was
a reward for the mesirut nefesh Avraham had by sanctifying Hashem’s
Name. Avraham had a son who was , full of all the good middot that
personified Avraham Avinu, an extension of Avraham’s mesirut nefesh,
as Yitzchak also went willingly to the Akeidah.

How does one merit having children who continue going in the right way?
Children learn from example. A child’s parents are his over-riding
example of behavior. If a child sees his father learn Torah and do mitzvot
without compromises and despite adversity, he will follow in his footsteps.
But if he sees how his father wavers in his learning, he learns to do the
same.